There are many different designs of carriers used for transporting beverage containers, but none provides space to introduce cooling means directly into the carrier. Instead, it is necessary when picnicking or traveling to put the beverage containers in a cooler, such as an ice chest, in order to chill the contents. Although this is a conventional customary routine, it is nevertheless a cumbersome one, requiring room to be made in a vehicle for the cooler and requiring the heavy cooler to be carried to the picnicking area.
It would be much more convenient to be able to chill the contents of beverage containers by adding ice directly to the container carrier itself. In such a small confined space, a minimal amount of ice would be required to chill and maintain the chilled temperature of the containers. Because the area required for one or more carriers is much less than the room normally taken up by a cooler, the task of transporting cool beverages to their final destination would be greatly simplified.
Although such a method of cooling beverage containers in place would be much preferred over conventional methods, beverage container carriers of current design are not capable of receiving ice while the containers are still in the carrier. Basket-style carriers and open-ended wrap-around style carriers by definition are not suited for this function since they do not provide an enclosed area for receiving both containers and ice. Neither are conventional fully enclosed sleeve-type carriers capable of holding both beverage containers and ice because the normally tight fit of the beverage containers does not leave enough room for ice to be introduced into the carrier. What would be desirable is an enclosed watertight carrier which has the ability to be expanded to a size capable of holding ice in addition to the packaged beverage containers. It is an object of the present invention to provide a carrier which can function in this ideal manner.